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10 August 2014

'Oh Joy' : An Art Doll tutorial!

Hello!
I'm back after a little break, all ready and raring to go with lots of step by step tutorials! The first one today is an art doll technique. I love these, and there are so many ways of creating them that this might not be the last this summer! This one is a doll hanger..

I'll show you some close ups of the finished piece at the end so you can see more detail!
To start, sketch out the head and body on a scrap of chipboard...

No drawing skill needed! Cut them out...

(Then I nearly got distracted as that pic, with the head in that position, gave me another idea! One to save for another day!!!) I covered the chipboard with book pages..

French text, for a change! I did just a littlepainty decoration of the head and body...

I left the crown part free of paint, as you can see. At this point I remembered I needed legs..... so, back out with the pencil and chipboard!

Cut out, book text and decorate..... I added stripes and red shoes...

Now the legs are done, finish off the body...

Doodling, a cut out word and a red heart. The head needs a face, so stamp on onto tissue using [permanent ink...

Don't worry if its not perfect, we're going to cut bits off! Glue the tissue to the head shape using Mod Podgeboth under and over the tissue. Even if the tissue does not cover the whole head shape, I would always add that top layer of Podge over everything. That way the finish is even across the whole shape...

Once dry, the Mod Podge will disappear....

I've doodled a bit around the edges, and added red dots!
The last thing we need to make are her wings. Create a painty background on a scrap of card..

I have separated the wings as my body was just a little too wide for the butterfly to be used uncut- the wings didn't stick out enough!
Now we're ready to assemble!
The hanger doubles up as the Art Dolls arms... they look almost ballerina-like, raised above her head! The arms are thick wire, and just hot glued to the back of the body...

The wings are then glued behind the arms...

The head needs to be stable, but I wanted to add it at a jaunty angle, so a neck is a good idea! The neck is a bit of bamboo skewer covered in a book page...

The head can then be glued however you wish...

Whilst the head needs to be static, I wanted the legs to have movement. I glued a loop of wire to the body...

Another loop of wire was glued to the legs. This loop needs to be at a 90 degree angle to the loop you already glued to the body. Snip a bit out of the loop on the legs so that it forms a hook.......

Simply hook the legs onto the body...

All done!

So, a simple, painty body...

Topped off with a quirky head....

And every Art Doll needs red glitter shoes...

Hope you like her...I'll be back with another tutorial soon!
Trish xxxx

Absolutely adorable!!! And thank you for this fab tutorial Trish. Things look quite simple, though the result is fantastic!! I think I could try such doll with my little twins, I'm pretty sure we will have tons of fun doing this! xx

Hi Sue! This particular doll is 28cm from the tip of her toes to the top of the hanger arms, and 11cm across the widest part (the tip of the wings). Of course, you can make yours whatever size you want, and if you have a face stamp that is a particular size, roughly stamp it out, then sketch out your head size to fit the face! Trish xx